King of Everything is a sketch show written and performed by comedians Johnny Candon and Michael Legge.

A number of individual comedy vignettes are interspaced with a plot concerning the accidental death of a woman backstage. An additional sub-plot also develops about a supposed short sexual relationship between the performers' fictionalised versions of themselves. This sees a number of love-letters read out in turn making it clear that the slightly hapless Michael Legge was perhaps wanting a little more than the brooding Johnny Candon was ever willing to give. The extent of this is revealed slowly throughout the show, blissfully going from sublime to ridiculous.

Sketches range in length and quality but are uniformly fun in a ramshackle way. The opening sketch concerns a job interview for a well-known chain of sandwich shops where the interviewee is trained to be as hopeless as possible. Shocked at the politeness of the prospective candidate, the interviewer urges him to 'look straight through the customer like the world's most boring ghost', before getting the customer the completely wrong order. The sketch builds in a very satisfying way, taking the initial idea to a surreal conclusion involving mythological food.

A sketch about inventors goes on a little too long, but the following performance of a reading from the Diary of Frank Anne is in wonderfully bad taste and all the better for being slightly, and presumably intentionally, under-prepared. Fiddlesticks (Johnny Candon) is a trendy twee comedian who sends up a number of fellow right-on comics before being exposed as a childhood racist. In-jokes are well aimed but could fly above the heads of anyone not fully comedy-savvy. On his exit from the stage, he mysteriously dies - another body for the men to worry about.

Further fictional corpses continue to pile up over the next few sketches about a supposed sex change operation (the moment when they reveal 'what women really think' is a misogynistic joy), prospective names for a new glam-rock star, and the Beatles in heaven. In a grand finale the two comedians are told to come out with their hands up by the police and die in a hail of bullets after goading the initially friendly officers. The police say that they are willing to let them off because they enjoyed the show but, to Michael Legge's horror, Johnny Candon challenges them to have the guts 'to shoot them in the face'.

Throughout the show, the two put in performances which are unlikely ever to attract the attention of the British Academy of Film and Televsion Awards (BAFTA) committee. But it is not the acting that makes this show special – and it is special – but rather the chemistry between the pair. The easy comedic interaction between nerdy Michael Legge and dark foreboding Johnny Candon is wonderful to watch, and they clearly have lots of fun on stage. No part of the show lasts more than about five minutes so any weak sections - there are a few - pass by quickly and are invariably followed by a stronger routine.

The plot-arch woven around the sketches works well to bring the show together and gives the performers ample time to mess about in a delightful fashion - riffing off each other and building momentum just to tear it down and start again. It's all over the place, but never anything less than supremely entertaining.

Cast Credits: (alpha order): Johnny Candon. Michael Legge.

Company Credits: Writer - Johnny Candon & Michael Legge. Director - uncredited. Technical Operator - not applicable. Producer - uncredited. Company - King Of Everything.

END

(c) David Hepburn 2009

reviewed Thursday 13 August / The GRV, Edinburgh, UK

Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012

www.fringereport.com